The inventive concept relates to data storage devices, and more particularly, to a data storage device using a host memory and a method of operating same.
A host may use a data storage device including nonvolatile memory, such as flash memory. Flash memory uses a flash translation layer (FTL) to map logical addresses generated by the host and corresponding physical addresses used by the data storage device. One or more mapping table(s) associated with the FTL may be stored in the data storage device.
The data storage device may include a separate volatile memory (e.g., dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or static RAM (SRAM)) that may be used to rapidly access the mapping table(s). However, when power supplied to the data storage device is interrupted, the mapping table(s) stored in the volatile memory may be lost. Further, as the size of mapping table(s) increases, a large quantity of volatile memory will also increase, thereby driving up the cost and physical size of the data storage device.